A Borrowed Nightmare
by emerald1198
Summary: "I love you – and I know you love me."  God, no.  But it's too late.  She knows who it is.  And she knows what comes next.  This was always someone else's dream.


**So, my goal for this fic is to boggle your minds as much as humanly possible, lol. I'm just kidding, but I must warn you, your protagonist in this one-shot spends the majority of this fic highly disoriented, bouncing between reality and surrealism.**

** Reviews, if you have the time, are greatly appreciated.**

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It's so cold. A chilling sensation is pervading every part of her body, coating her bones and brushing over her skin. The cadence of her heartbeat is irregular. It thuds twice, remains still for a moment, and then – so rapidly it hurts – beats four more times.

But when she brings her fingertips to the soft skin of her forearm, she feels no goose bumps, no rough, frostbitten patches. The air trickling from her lips in short gasps remains invisible in twinkling air.

Her breathing mists into music. It's low, at first, muffled and strangely distant. Close yet infinity away. Her eyes water, and somehow, though her body is still – rigid, even – something inside her is trembling viciously. A blur of color ignites in the darkness, swirling and twisting around her – carrying the sound of her misty breathing far away.

Suddenly, everything is very real.

The music is louder, the words distinct and no longer muffled by an invisible barrier. The colors morph into lights, two-dimensional circles that bounce off solid walls in front of her – strobe lights. Her own feet are on the floor, her own arms numb and limp at her own waist, when something bumps her. She stumbles into the walls just as a green circle-light departs, and as she grips her fingertips at the flat surface, two more visit, reflecting over her stomach – a blue and then a pink one.

It all happens so fast, and it's not until she opens her eyes once more that she realizes, with her face pressed close against the luminescent wall, she had been clenching them tightly shut.

Her senses liven through her being as her eyes adjust to the scene. A school dance. A DJ, a dance floor, a punch bowl. Students scatter the room, girls in dresses that hug their curves and boys in tuxedoes and dress shirts.

_It's not right to let you stay / It's not right to mess with me. _

The music continues to play. She brings a clammy palm to her forehead. She's vaguely aware of the chilling sensation, the darkness, the blurring colors that she emerged from. It's a rapidly fading memory, though; soon, she knows, she won't remember.

Blisters throb on the backs of her heels, strapped to glistening stilettos that she can barely maintain her balance in while leaning against the wall. A purple, vintage dress wraps around her waist, flailing out with ruffles that are cut off at knee length.

Something is so strikingly familiar.

_No, it's not right to play this game._

She gulps down frantic breaths a few times before standing straight, sniveling once and running her hands over the silky dress.

"Are you okay?" She turns and whirls around – a miracle in the high heels – to see Alli Bhandari studying her worriedly. Her hair is pulled back into a tight bun, and a dark green dress flows down her body.

She coughs once. "Y-yeah," she manages to mutter.

But then something vibrates against her side. She gropes at her hip, but there is no pocket. In fact, there is no tangible item claiming to be the source. Her hand shakes – and the chilling sensation is back, stronger than ever. She had forgotten about it, but now the darkness and blurs of color and her hollow breathing all morph back together. Reality of the dance smudges away, and the vibration at her side continues.

"You didn't show up." The words aren't real. They can't be. A figment of the darkness.

"I was at the dance." Her lips haven't moved, have they? Does she have lips? It's unmistakably her voice that utters the words, though.

"You ripped my heart out!" Who is screaming at her – or at the _girl?_ The voice is painfully familiar . . . but it can't be. The hostility – the rage – the hysteria – _No, it can't be._

"I love you – and I _know_ you love me."

God, no. But it's too late. She knows who it is. And she knows what comes next.

Tires screech. Horns blare. A sickening sound of tearing metal cuts through the silence. And the whole while, she is tumbling into the darkness, her screams hoarse and terrified and _everywhere._

There's pain at her hips. She feels that first. Reality again. The world of darkness is fading. She's not sure which she hates more.

She's sprawled over broken glass, her hair wet with blood – _her_ blood – and she tries to stand but a searing pain is gripping her waist where a gash oozing crimson has appeared. She yelps out in pain, and this time her voice is real. It trips from her mouth in the form of sharp, quick clouds of white in the crisp air.

There's a black, dented car to the right of her and a demolished bicycle to the left – and, God, _everything_ hurts. Another figure, dark and bloody like her, crawls from the wreckage. He's sobbing and wincing with every move towards her he makes, but when he finally nears her, the raven-haired boy collapses over her blood-soaked stomach, clutching at the ruffles of her purple dress.

"No!" He's moaning, "Wake up! Wake up!"

"I am awake!" She screams at him, though she's not sure herself anymore. Everything is so surreal even as tangible winds brush over her pale cheeks. "Look at me," she pleads, "I'm here! I'm right here!"

But the boy doesn't seem to have heard her. He continues to cry into her stomach, sobbing harder when he sees her blood on his hands. He looks her directly in the eyes, and she gasps at the familiar emeralds. But still, even as Eli Goldsworthy stares into her open eyes, alive and pleading, he can't see her. "Wake up!" He wails, and then cries a name into her chest that isn't her own. "I'm sorry, Jules. Please, just wake up, Julia. Please."

She pulls at the dark locks of his hair, but he doesn't heed her – just continues to fall apart in tears.

Suddenly, her vision flips on its own accord. She can feel Eli burying his head into her stomach still, but now her head is turned to the side. A stream of blood is trickling from the corner of her lips to the pavement, and she's looking out over the street of downtown Toronto. Across the road, people enter and exit lit up shops without taking notice of her. Cars and taxis drive by, their passengers glancing out the window with tired, oblivious eyes.

And as the vehicles flash by, she catches, between them, a white, shining figure crossing the street. It's a teenage girl, not much younger than herself – fifteen or sixteen maybe. A crystal light illuminates her white dress. Her hair is ebony, her lips a creamy pink, and, at first, her brown eyes are bitter with resentment.

"Julia," she whispers, still holding Eli's head in her hands, at the angel.

Julia nods, and the girl's face crumples into a pain as she clutches at her stomach. A dark line of scarlet cuts through her white dress. Her hair, folded up into an elegant bun, unfolds and soaks into blood. The angel whimpers once, even her cry sounding like silver chimes.

And Julia's gone.

As Eli continues to sob, she looks down at her own injuries. They are identical. The wound cuts through her in the same place it scarred the angel.

"I'm not Julia!" She screams at Eli one last time, but it is no use – and the pain throbbing in her head is dulling her senses. Her vision dances around the edges, blurring, fading, and finally darkening.

And just when she thinks the end is near, she is whisked for the third time into the surreal abyss of color and shallow breathing. All the while, the pain never subsides.

_The voice in my head screams / Watch out! / 'Cause I know you keep on dragging me down._

She is a pile of ruffles in a room where the circle-lights bounce off the walls again. The music is blaring, and she's crying so hard that she can't be sure she's really back in the tangible world – what with the way her tears blur the colors.

"I'm not Julia!" She screams over and over again, thrashing against the wall. "The angel – _she_ was Julia!"

Students dance around her, step over her, but no one seems to see her, crying and bleeding on the floor.

_I've got to find a way to turn this around. / But I can't keep away from you now. / Watch out!_

_ Watch out!_

_ Watch out!_

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"Ahhh!" She wakes up screaming at the top of her lungs. For a moment, she's unsure that it's over, prepares to reenter the surreal darkness. But this is a different kind of reality.

She gropes her side for the warm liquid that trickled from it moments ago, but there is nothing but the sweating fabric of her camisole and the waistband of her pajama pants. Her hair is wet, but it's not with blood. Instead, it's from the shower she took a few hours ago before falling asleep.

A few dragging moments pass before her breathing slows to normal pace and her heart beat falls back into its average cadence. She wipes away the tears running down her face and runs a hand through her disheveled strands of hair.

Against her side, her phone vibrates, startling her. She had been texting on it last night, she realizes; it had probably been tangled up in the covers when the drowsiness took her over before she had the chance to place it on the nightstand.

Hesitantly, she glances at the screen and winces.

_Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid._ The thought, to her, sounds like the senseless mutterings she always sees those insane patients whispering to themselves. _Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid._

But it's no use. Just like the girl she once scoffed at, Imogen Moreno now feels like a terrified little fifteen year-old.

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** Complete drabble if it wasn't obvious. **

**Sorry about the scene that I'm well aware may have been a source of confusion – the one in which Julia visits the site of the car accident. Because I wanted to wait to the ending to reveal that Imogen was the protagonist of the one-shot, I couldn't be clear in that scene what antecedent the pronoun "her" was referring to.**

** If you didn't understand or had to take a second glance at it, what basically went down was Imogen found herself under Eli as he cried and mistook her for Julia. Meanwhile, Eli was unaware of the girl standing in the street – the real Julia. Imogen watched as a gash of blood appeared on Julia, and Imogen realized, after Julia had left, that the wound on her own stomach was identical.**

** At any rate, I hope you enjoyed. I'm not sure that Imogen is afraid of Eli on the show – or if she simply is unsure of how to handle him. Either way, I'm sure she's empathizing a bit more with Clare nowadays.**

** I know the nightmare didn't make a whole lot of sense, but, in actuality, when do they? I just wanted to create a realistic picture, you know.**

** Thanks for reading. A review would make my day. **


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